‘You silly, children.’ the government mocks, ‘you don’t have a voice. What can you do?’

Out of my classroom window, I see my friends.

Some are arrested; other are sent to prison in handcuffs.

While others die on the ground.

I see my girlfriend with the boy she loved dead on the ground.

The streets are red; and so is the schoolyard.

The brave children put up a fight to be heard in an oppressed government.

Many are incarcerated and many die for a fight for freedom.

The Children are crying. But are we listening?

Author’s note.

This is a haunting poem about defiance, the fight for freedom and the cost of the fight. In the 1960’s and 1970’s there was a power struggle between the youth and government. They was a shocking image that I saw of a nameless girl crying for a dead boy on the ground. It was a tragic photograph that shocked the world. Now in 2009,(30 years after the fight for freedom in Iran), the children are in the street once more. Fighting, defining and dying for a voice of freedom. I may be young, but I know that good wins over evil if their is a fight for it. This poem is dedicated to the youth of Iran. We hear you, don’t give up.